Embroidery



(NoModel.) Q

M. H. PULASKI.

'EMBROIDERY. No. 298,025.v PatentedrMaLy 6, 1884.`

NITRO STATES PATENT OFFICE.

EMBROIDERY.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 298,025, datedMay 6, 1884.

Application filed December Y, 1853. (No model.)

.To all whom t may concern,.-

Beit known that I, MORRIS H. ,PULASKL a citizen of the United States, residing at Philadelphia, in the vcounty of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania, have invented a new4 and useful 'Improvement inTextile Fabrics, of which the following is a specification.

The nature and object of my invention consists in the production of a new article of manufacture of the class of goods known as machine-embroideries, andin the process for making said new article. which I (genominate' embroidery-lace. The distinction between machine-embroideries and lace is this:

The former has figures or ornamental lines and devices stitched upon a foundation of textile material. Said material has sometimes parts of its body pierced, cut away, or removed,l

interwoven into a net, said threads carried inV different directions (knotted or twisted together) which form a predetermined designY in combination with the interstitial spaces between said threads. Lace has no foundation of textile fabric, as is the case with machine and other embroidery, and lace-work is measurably weaker than machine-embroidery by reason of the absence of any textile foundationf The beauty and durability of'machineembroidery is every Season supplanting the use of lace, and would in a great measure take the place of lace were it not that such embroidery necessarily displays portions of the fabric foundation plain and uncovered by any ornamentation. The durability of machineembroidery is so much superior to lace that for many purposes it must necessarily be used;

. but besides its durability it is far less costly.

Various attempts have been made to produce a lace effect, in some instances cutting away certain parts of the cloth or foundation fabric;

again, perforating certain parts of said material; again, stretching temporary threads terial, and then washing away those portions of the paper or the like not .worked over; but

these processes have all more or less objectionable features, .among whic is the in- .creased cost of production, or,.if worked on paper or the like, the absence of the body of textile fabric, or the failure to produce the exact counterpart of lace-work. To overcome these and other objections has been the object of my invention, which,I claim,discloses a new process by means of which I produce a new,

article of manufacture never before known, of

a durable character, useful and cheap, and of a beautiful description. By my processl produce perfect lace-work, preferably made on an embroidery-machine, upon a textile body or foundation, but no part of Said textile fabric being visible when the article is completed; and I produce my new article of embroiderylace without the use of acid or any dissolving fluid -or substance, and without breaking,- cutting away, or perforating any part of the foundation fabric, using only for the production of my embroiderydace textile fabric as a foundation, and the thread with which the strands of said fabric arescovered.l

In order that those skilled in the art to which my invention appcrtains may fully un- A'derstand it, I will now proceed to explain it,

reference being had to the accompanying drawings, made a part hereof, in which Figure l represents a piece of fabric, partly finished and partly unflnished,illustrating my invention. Fig. 2 is an enlarged detail View of a piece of fabric employed in my invention,

illustrating the process of producing my embroidery-lace.

In Fig. 1, A represents the various stages of my invention, in which a is a finished piece of embroidery-lace. b, to the left thereof, is a portion of the foundation fabric in its normal condition. c, to the right of a, shows the fabric as it appears while beingmanipulated to produce the finished material a. ln this iigure l have made the fabric Z) conform to a scale of twenty meshes to the lineal inch. c represents openings made by drawing apart the fibers or strands of the warp and woot of the fabric b.

`The foundation is a piece of textile fabric specially adapted for the purpose intended, with warp and Woof not closely woven together,and so arranged that any required num ber of its strands can be pushed or drawn in any direction. In other words, one to ten or twenty (more or less) of the smaller meshes can be made to form one larger one by simply pushing or drawing any required number of strands or threads of the fabric b a required distance apart in any desired direction, according to the size and shape, as the ease may be, of such openings requisite to compose a given design. Upon this open-meshed fabric Iembroiderin the ordinary manner. r)She neen dle passes down through one of the openings in the fabric, and the embroidery-thread is drawn to the requisite tension, thus drawing such mesh-work open, as illustrated at c', and

gathering into a group the adjacent strands. y

Over these groups of strands the work is continued until they are covered with the rcquired quantity of embroidery-thread, and so on all over the fabric b until every strand of the warp and woef thereof in groups is conlpletely covered over with embroidery-threads. The groups of strands of the fabric b are drawn apart not broken) until the opening made by their separation assumes a given contour, and it is manifest that all of these openings may be of the same size, character, or shape, or of divers and diverse sizes and shapes, the gist of the invention being that the strands of the fabric b shall all be gathered or grouped in predetermined directions to constitute a given design, and that all ot' such groups of strands shall be entirely covered with embroidery threads without giving the goods a coarse appearance,and without leaving any of the body of the material or textile fabric visible.

The number of threads drawn aside, grouped together, and covered, as set forth, with embroidery-threads need not be uniformly the same, for it is obvious that a variety of cir cumstauces and conditions will have to be considered. First, it will depend on the size of the meshes. lt will be readily linderstood that more threads will be gathered aside and grouped when a finely-meshed fabric is employed than when a fabric with larger meshes is used as foundation. Again, the size of the openings intended to be made by drawing the strands apart will have to be taken into consideration, and as these openings are not necessarily of the same size on the same web the groups of strands will not therefore all be alike in quantity. It will thus be understood that, the openings havin g been formed by drawing apart (in predetermined directions, so as to form a given design, as before stated) all of the strands of the meshed fabric, and then entirely covering said strands with embroiderythreads, I produce an exact counterpart of open lace work composed of grouped strands of the foundation fabric covered over with emluoidery-threads, securing great strength and durability, and without lea-ving any of the body of said fabricvisible, all as plainly illustrated in the drawings.

Wha-t I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

l. The within-described process for producing embroidery-lace,which consists of the following steps: first, drawing aside in desired directions in an unbroken condition each and all of the strands of all of the meshes of a piece of textile fabric specially adapted for the purpose, and gathering said strands into groups to form open spaces therein of predetermined conflgu rationsthen covering over and concealing with embroidery-threads all of the strands so drawn aside, substantially as set forth and described.

2. As a new article of manufacture, cmbroidery-lacc composed of afoundation of textile fabric specially adapted for the purpose, each and all the strands of all the meshes of which are drawn aside in desired directions in unbroken condition and gathered in groups to form openings of predetermined configurations, said strands being entirely covered over and concealed from view with overlapping embroidery-threads, substantially as described and shown.

MORRIS H. PULASKI.

Titnessesz Isaac VARNER, Louis PULAsKr. 

